Keith Burris: Foley will have to put something on the table

Keith C. Burris

Published 5:31 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

Tom Foley came very close to being governor of Connecticut in 2010. And that was with no electoral experience.

Foley is a businessman, Republican fundraiser, and former U.S. ambassador to Ireland.

He has made it plain that he wants to try again in 2014.

He will need to put more on the table this time.

That is, he will need to spell out, in specific terms, how he would be a different sort of governor than Dannel Malloy.

If Foley does this, he has a very good chance of being elected, unless his ideas and proposals are simply outrageous. And Foley is not an outrageous guy.

He should think Ross Perot. Be the nerd with the charts. From now until the election, Foley should talk numbers and concrete plans.

Foley has models, other than Malloy, for how to reorganize a state government that its residents can no longer afford. The governors of Ohio, Wisconsin, New York, and California all offer varied approaches.

Foley has also started, and is financing, his own think tank, though, inexplicably, he says he wants to keep his distance from it. So there is no lack idea material out there.

What Foley was missing last time, and what he has conspicuously lacked as he has traveled around the state in recent weeks to signal his intent to run again, is any natural feel for state government and state issues. He has to fix that.

McMahon never learned. Never did her homework. Never bothered to dig into policy. She lost because she was not serious about politics and government and the people rightly did not take her seriously. She was only serious about acquiring a bauble. And that won't play in 2014.

Many people in this state, including many Democrats, want to vote for a Republican for governor next year.

They believe that Governor Malloy has failed to tackle the structural fiscal problems of the state. They believe that public employee unions, necessary and important as they are, have such a monopolistic hold on the Democratic Party in this state, and thus the legislature and the governor, that only a Republican can impose some restraint in state wages and benefits.

But if Foley simply says, "I am not Malloy," he will lose. And Malloy will win -- handily.

Even if you think Malloy has not done enough, you know where he stands, and you know he works hard, and you know he loves the state.

Indeed, even though he is a millionaire and the presumptive nominee, Foley could lose a Republican primary.

We have public financing available for the governor's race. Malloy himself used it to defeat a rich self-financed candidate in 2010.

A publicly financed candidate with an actual platform could defeat a vague Foley. Businessman and 2010 candidate Oz Griebel could do it. State Rep. and Republican legislative leader Larry Cafero, who knows state government, could do it. Former congressman, state legislator, and state business advocate Rob Simmons, who heads yet another right-learning Connecticut think tank, could do it.

After McMahon, a vague self-financing millionaire is an unpersuasive candidate.